


atomic blonde

by demogorgns



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: 80s Fashion, Angst, Autism, Canon Compliant, Compulsory Heterosexuality, Dungeons & Dragons References, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Robin Buckley, Period-Typical Homophobia, Slow Burn, Useless Lesbians, let's go lesbians let's go, trigger warning for the d-slur
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21548521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demogorgns/pseuds/demogorgns
Summary: Robin definitely, absolutely, 100% does not have a crush on the high school mean girl. The high school mean girl definitely, absolutely, 100% does not have a crush on Robin. The situation is complicated by evil Russian scientists and inter-dimensional monsters, because this is Hawkins.
Relationships: Robin Buckley/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41





	1. bubblegum bitch

**Author's Note:**

> back on the gay shit. if you notice gloria is the same oc from 'i'm not gonna teach him how to dance with you'.........yep. good catch.

It was a Saturday, sixteen minutes after seven o’clock in the evening, and Robin Buckley had been having a pretty decent day so far. As decent as a day spent slinging ice-cream for pushy soccer moms, asshole teens and snot-nosed kids with the dumb former-jock-king of her high school could be. No-one had screamed at her, or puked everywhere, or dropped their cone all over the floor. Even Harrington was being cool, coming up from back on his break to help her with a tidal wave of kids at the counter earlier. Her shift was done at nine, and Robin was riding high. Until _she_ walked in.

You could always tell when Gloria Duke was about to arrive, even before you spotted her – her heels clicked obnoxiously on the floor, her cloud of perfume and hairspray wafted before her, and her shrill gaggle of bitchy hangers-on sounded like a flock of seagulls descending on a discarded sandwich. It was that way in the school corridors, at the pool, and, now, at the mall. Like every area where the teenage population of Hawkins congregated, Gloria ruled Starcourt Mall as queen.

“Not _again,_ ” Robin muttered under her breath as her high school bully rounded the corner for the fifth time in as many days. What was with this girl? It felt to Robin like Gloria visited Scoops every time Robin was on shift, always ready with a bitchy comment and a cruel smirk. Robin had imagined that once school was out for the summer, Gloria and her rich, yuppie family would fuck off to the south of France or a Greek island so Gloria could get her tan to show off once school started up again and _leave Robin alone_ , but no such luck.

Resplendent in her acid-washed, bedazzled denim jacket, mini-skirt, kitten heels and legwarmers, she strode up to the counter. Robin, stone-faced, pushed herself off the back wall with her elbows and made to go up and submit to the torture, but before she could take a step, Harrington barged in front of her.

“No worries, Robin. I got this one.” He shook out his light brown hair with his fingers as he went, and unsubtly checked his reflection in the back of his ice-cream scooper. Robin cringed internally. _Better get the board._

“Gloria, hi –” Eager as a puppy, Steve bounced up to the counter, leaning over towards the bleach-blonde queen bee. She stopped him in his tracks with a long, pink-nail-tipped finger, and snapped open a powder compact from her pocket, carefully examining her lipstick pout and elaborately permed hair in the mirror, adjusting her headband. Satisfied, she snapped the compact closed once more and turned back to Steve, tapping her nails on the counter. Pink jelly bracelets glittered in the lights as they moved up and down her wrists.

“Hi, Stevie.” She looked up through heavily mascaraed lashes at the older teen. “I didn’t know you were working here.”

Robin could see the danger signs in the upwards curl of Gloria’s full lips, and the way her vapid followers giggled behind her, but Steve remained blissfully ignorant.

“Yeah, I considered college, but I wanted to get some real work experience first, y’know?”

“Uh-huh?” Gloria replied innocently, widening blue eyes. “That’s _so_ cool. Scooping ice-cream is real mans’ work, right? Like, that’s _way_ better than going to college. That takes _brains._ And I’m sure it’ll, like, _totally_ help your career.”

As her empty-headed little friends collapsed into giggles behind her, Steve seemed to catch on to the fact that he was being made fun of. Anger rose in Robin’s chest as she saw his face fall. She let the stupid board fall with a clatter and barged out of the break room.

“Oh yeah, Gloria? You’re so smart? Is that why you failed Bio this year? I heard you had to get Reggie Kowalski to tutor you.” Kowalski was a skinny red head with an alarming number of freckles, braces, and the best Bio scores in Robin’s whole grade. Gloria’s face twisted with fury.

“Whatever, Buckley. I might not be a nerd, but at least I have a social life.”

“Yeah, hanging out at the mall at seven o’clock. Seems like you’ve got a sparkling social calendar.”

Gloria’s lip curled again, with a smile that might have been cruel, and might have been…something else. She leaned her forearms on the counter, bending over, and Robin had to drag her eyes away from the cleavage exposed as her low-cut tank top fell away from her skin. _Jesus, Buckley. Pull yourself together. Remember, she’s Satan._

“At least she’s not a huge _dyke_ ,” said Miranda Wilson, coming up to stand beside Gloria, “Unlike some people.”

At once, the atmosphere changed. The playfully cruel smile dropped from Gloria’s face in an instant and was replaced with a blank, cold expression, and she immediately reared back from the counter, her eyes dropping to examine the rhinestone toes of her heels. Robin stared at Miranda Wilson and her hateful glossed smirk and her stupid crimped black blow-out until her vision began to blur with tears.

Gloria rolled her eyes and broke the awkward silence, like a robot that had just been switched back on. Her smile was plastered over her face again, but to Robin’s eyes it seemed fake. “Come on, girls. Ice-cream makes you fat, anyway. Let’s get corn dogs instead.”

She pulled Miranda away by the arm, and the other girls followed like sheep.

“Jesus _Christ._ You okay?”

Robin cleared her throat, blinking the tears away. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just Gloria.”

“She’s like that all the time?” Steve stared at her, apparently in genuine surprise. Despite the recent unpleasant scene, Robin had to laugh.

“Uh, yeah. It’s _Gloria.”_

“I guess I never realized.”

“You wouldn’t have. At least, not before you started working here.” Robin sighed and rubbed her eyes until the black behind her eyelids turned into little kaleidoscopes. When she opened them again, Steve put a hand on her shoulder.

“Well, she’s a total snatch. Forget her. Take a break, I’ll handle things out here for a while.”

Unsure how to handle this, Robin settled for a perplexed frown. “…Thanks, man.”

As Robin slumped in the breakroom with her head in her hands, heart still racing, tears still threatening to spill over, Gloria Duke sat at a table in the food court with her friends and sulked.

“Jesus Gloria, who shat in your cornflakes?” Miranda popped a bubble of blue gum and got back to chewing.

“No-one. God, get off my case.” Every sound was grating in Gloria’s ears – the tinny muzak spilling through the mall’s speakers, the squeak of shoes on the tiled floors, the echoing shouts and screams of laughter all around, and the sound of Miranda’s chewing. _Especially_ that.

“Well, something’s wrong with you, otherwise you wouldn’t be looking at me like I just told you that skirt makes your ass look huge.” As always, Miranda was queen of the underhand insult. Gloria could feel herself beginning to lose it, and the worst thing was, she couldn’t even figure out what was bugging her so much. Miranda was _always_ like this, and sure, it was annoying, but it had never bothered Gloria like this before. 

“Projecting much, Miranda?” she snapped.

“What!?”

“If anyone’s got something wrong with them, not to mention a huge ass, it’s not me.” Gloria stood up abruptly, as Miranda and the others stared at her. Their vacant eyes and wide-open mouths disgusted her, but for some reason all Gloria could see was Robin Buckley’s eyes filling with tears. Not that Gloria cared. But she couldn’t deny the anger that rose in her like a tidal wave when she thought of it. “This blows. I’m getting out of here.”

“Is this because I called Buckley a dyke? I was _defending_ you, Gloria. _God._ Plus, she totally is.”

Now, mortifyingly, Gloria could feel tears begin to sting her own eyes. “Why would I care about that? Not everything has to do with you, Miranda. Call me when you get that.”

Gloria turned on her heel and tried not to run to the parking lot.

Once she was locked inside her white Trans Am, Gloria finally felt safe enough to turn on the radio and cry. Even as the tears flowed down her cheeks, leaving ugly track marks in her foundation and melting her mascara, she still didn’t understand _why_ she was crying. What _was_ her problem? Robin Buckley was just another little band freak that wasn’t worth Gloria’s time. _(Then why have you spent every day this week at the mall looking for her)_

It was just a bit of fun, a joke. _Let’s go find Robin Buckley and make fun of her in that dumb outfit. (And stare at her legs in those shorts and knee-high socks)_

It didn’t mean anything. _(Then why did it hurt so much when Miranda said that word you know the one)_

Because Miranda went too far. It was supposed to be a joke, not, not… _that. (Not what)_

That word. It was cruel. Gloria had never meant to be cruel. _(Maybe it hit a little too close to home)_

No. No, no, no. _(Maybe it hurt because you_ are _a)_

“No!” Gloria slammed her shaking hands on the steering wheel, head pounding as the tears continued to flow.

It was hard to breathe in the confined space of the car, with the radio pounding and the bright neon signs of the mall shining down on her as she sat in the parking lot, sobbing. She was trying to keep it inside, pressing her hand to her mouth as if to physically keep her feelings down like vomit. But it got harder every year, every day. Gloria thought about her morning routine, choosing her clothes to be carefully feminine, doing her makeup with a practiced hand, painting a perfect face; putting on a costume and greasepaint. At school she kept up the act, had the right friends, said the right things, flirted with the right boys and let them touch her, but not _too_ much. In the locker room, she averted her eyes, the act of looking away feeling almost as telling as the act of looking. And if what she really wanted was to hang out with girls like Robin Buckley, brave brash girls with graffitied sneakers and chipped nail varnish, girls who weren’t ashamed, then she curbed those instincts.

As Gloria Duke sat in her car and cried, Robin was packing up her things to leave, her shift finally, mercifully over. As she strode through the eerie half-light of the neon signs, past the slowly shutting-down shops to the rattle of shutters going down, she tried in vain to recapture the good feeling she’d had before Gloria and her bitch army walked in. Robin sometimes wondered if she made more of an effort, if she grew her hair out and wore makeup and high heels and skirts, if it might get easier. She had never been one to conform, and she was proud of that, but some days it was so damn hard. So hard, she might actually contemplate trying to hide.

And _God,_ why did her tormentor have to be so _hot?_

It wasn’t like Robin had a crush on her. No _way._ She was far too evil. But it was hard not to notice the simple fact that she was gorgeous, and it was _way_ distracting when Robin was trying to put her down with a cutting, witty line.

And when they were engaged in their back and forth, snarking and bitching, it kinda felt… _fun._ Gloria never said anything _too_ mean after all, nothing Robin couldn’t handle, and this summer especially Robin had, perversely, almost begun to look forward to seeing her. In some ways it was like teasing Steve, though less good-natured.

That was, of course, until Miranda Wilson dropped the d-bomb. Then it was like Robin’s world had shattered, and real hurt had set in. Gloria had never _hurt_ Robin before – irritated, at best. But never hurt. And yes, _Gloria_ hadn’t said it. And yes, Robin had been called it before. But something about the way Gloria had just stared at her shoes and then walked away, like it was _nothing…_ Robin hadn’t really expected Gloria to defend her, of course not. Expect, maybe, a little part of her had.

She was overthinking so hard; she didn’t even realize she had made it downstairs and into the parking lot until she felt the cool evening air on her face. She made to cross the parking lot to the bike rack and head, but before she took a step, she spotted the white Trans Am sitting alone in the lot, the neon lights warping and reflecting in its perfect, shiny paint job. Inside, Robin could just make out a head of blonde curls, shaking with what might have been sobs. The vanity plate on the back of the car read GL0R1A 520.

_Ah. Fuck._

To get to her bike, she was going to have to walk across Gloria’s field of vision. No avoiding it – the bike rack was directly in front of the Trans Am. Unless she rolled, James Bond-style, underneath the hood. _Recipe for disaster._

Robin forced her feet forward, one by one, step by step, until she was approaching the Trans Am’s drivers’ side. She could see Gloria way better now, could see the tears tracks glistening on her cheeks and the puddles of melted mascara beneath her eyes. Snot was running from her nose, and Robin could hear her muffled sobs, the kind of sobs you get when you’ve been crying _seriously_ hard for at least an hour. _I can’t not say anything. But also, I really, really don’t want to say anything._

Robin tapped on the drivers’ side window.

Gloria thought she would have calmed down by now, but no, the tears were still coming. She was at the breathless, hiccup-y stage now, where she couldn’t seem to draw a full breath in anymore. Her face felt sticky, her eyes itchy, and her head pounded. God, she was _disgusting._ She thought it might feel good to let it out, the pressure that had been building since God knows when, but it just felt even grosser than bottling it all up. No matter how hard she cried, she couldn’t deny that her life felt _wrong,_ just wrong, like trying to force your left foot into your right shoe.

The radio pounded synth into the car. Gloria moved to change the station, shifting the dial into static. She turned the dial again, and again, feeling frustration build.

_“Nedelya dlinnaya.”_

Gloria frowned. She could have sworn she had just heard a voice in the static. She stopped turning the dial.

 _“…Kogda siniy vstrechayetsya s zheltym na zapade…”_ The voice faded in and then back out again. It sounded like gibberish to Gloria, but it was _definitely_ a human voice.

“Fucking _creepy,”_ she murmured to herself, tears momentarily forgotten.

The rap of fingers on her window made her jump.

“Oh, _God. Buckley!?”_

She wound the window down, hands trembling. Robin shifted awkwardly on the asphalt outside.

“Gloria. Is…is something wrong?”

“I…I’m not sure,” Gloria whispered. Robin suddenly felt cold. _She actually looks scared._

“What is it? What’s going on?”

In the car, a voice came once more through the crackle of static.

_“…Serebryanyy kot kormit…”_

“What the fuck…is that.”

Gloria shook her head. “I have _no_ idea.”


	2. crimson and clover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gloria: when i was seventeen i had a crush on a girl and i didn't know how to handle it so i just wrote her a letter saying 'get out of my mall'

“What the fuck…is that.”

“I have no idea.”

The two girls stared at the radio for a moment as the static continued to cough and splutter. The silence of the lot was heavy.

_“…Poyezdka v Kitay zvuchit khorosho…”_

“-Shit -!”

“-Oh my God -!”

Both girls jumped. Gloria’s hand landed on Robin’s arm through the open window.

Robin glanced down at her arm. Gloria started and withdrew her hand, her burning face impossible to see under her layers of foundation.

“At first I thought it was just gibberish, but now I think it sounds like Russian,” Gloria explained in a shaky voice.

Robin glanced at her, impressed. “Good catch.”

“What do you think it means?”

Robin left the open window and rushed around to the passengers’ side, opening the door and sliding into the white leather seat. “I have no idea,” she admitted, “But if we record it, I bet I can figure it out.” She reached into her backpack and drew out a voice recorder.

Gloria frowned. “Who just carries that around with them?”

“I do. I practice my German in the break room. Playing my voice back helps a ton.”

“Wow. Wish I’d known _that_ before my Spanish oral.”

Robin pressed a button, and a red light on the recorder flicked on. They sat in the static for a moment.

Gloria sighed. “Now what?”

“Now we wait.”

“What if it doesn’t come through again?”

“Well, then -”

_“Nedelya dlinnaya.”_

_“Holy shit!”_

“Shut up -!”

_“…Kogda siniy vstrechayetsya s zheltym na zapade. Serebryanyy kot kormit. Poyezdka v Kitay zvuchit khorosho…”_ Finally, the voice faded into the static once again.

“Think we got it all?” Gloria asked. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but for some reason getting every last word of the weird Russian guy in the static on her car radio had suddenly become the most pressing need of her life.

“I think so. Those last sounds sounded familiar, so I think we reached the end of the cycle.”

“How do we translate it?”

“First we need to transliterate it into Cyrillic.”

“We need to what it into _what?_ ”

“Cyrillic, it’s the Russian alphabet. In order to translate it, we need to know what the words look like first.”

“I couldn’t even tell where the words ended, let alone what letters were in them.”

“Don’t worry about it. I speak Spanish, and French, and Italian -”

“- And you’re in band,” Gloria blurted without thinking.

“Uh…yeah.” Robin’s cheeks glowed pink, colored by the neon lights. “So…I have a good ear.”

“Right.”

The interior of the car was small, low-ceilinged. Robin noticed how her scabbed, Band-Aid covered knee almost brushed Gloria’s smooth, tanned one and suddenly felt huge and clumsy, like a giant about to burst out of the car, arms and legs flailing. She cleared her throat and opened the car door.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. I’ll work on the recording tonight, see how much I can transliterate.”

“Right. Awesome. So…” Gloria reflexively raised a hand to adjust her headband. “Do you want to meet up tomorrow?”

“You…and me?”

“Uh, _duh._ Obviously. Not, like, as _friends,_ just to…find out what the hell is going on.”

“You want to help?”

“Well, I just want to know why some guy’s creepy voice came through while I was trying to find a station that plays Madonna. It’s probably nothing, but this summer is _so_ boring, and my friends are _majorly_ bumming me out lately, so it looks like this is the most entertainment I’m gonna get. Which is totally _lame._ ”

“Right.” Robin rolled her eyes. “Totally.”

Gloria watched Robin bike away into the warm summer night, then switched on her engine and flexed her fingers on the wheel. Unable to process what had just happened, she mentally brushed it aside. When they got down to it, the Russian would probably be coming from some weird pirate station, just nonsense that her car radio had randomly picked up. She would watch Robin translate it, it would be boring and awkward, and then they would go their separate ways. By September, it would be back to the old routine. The old Gloria. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would. The idea was comforting and crushing, all at once.

Gloria took a deep breath, released the handbrake, and rolled out of the parking lot.

Driving a little recklessly, she made it home in time. Her mother was laid out before the glow of the TV as ever, rollers and cold cream already in place. She waved acrylic nails at Gloria in greeting as her daughter headed upstairs.

Light was spilling out in fan beneath the door of her father’s study, but Gloria walked past it and down the corridor, to the door with the Disney character stickers stuck all over it. She knocked once, softly, and then turned the handle and entered.

“Hey, buddy. It’s me.”

Gloria picked her way over the neat lines of Star Wars toys and Dungeons and Dragons figurines on the blue carpet, careful of her kitten heels. Her brother’s blond head was bent over his desk as he carefully crayoned in a coloring book, but he turned when he heard Gloria approach.

“It’s time to play now?”

“Sure is, kiddo. I’ll grab the books.”

He nodded. Gloria smiled and traversed the rows of toys once again to get the stack of D&D manuals from their allotted place on the shelf. When she turned back, Marty was already settling himself cross-legged on a free space on the carpet. Gloria set the manuals down in front of him and removed her heels so she, too, could sit down. She let him sift through the campaigns to find the one he wanted, since they’d just finished their latest one last night.

Marty held up a book with a green cover. Gloria leaned in to read the title.

“ _Palace of the Silver Princess?_ We really like that one, huh?”

Marty nodded solemnly.

“Okay. Ready to start?”

Another silent nod. Gloria opened the book and began to read aloud.

“Ancient legends of the land speak of a beautiful young princess called Argenta who lived in a wonderful enchanted palace made of every type of marble known. Her palace was in the heart of a rich, fertile valley filled with gentle creatures that could do no harm. Exotic flowers and plant life grew everywhere, water ran sweet and clear and the skies were always clear and warm…”

Robin was absurdly grateful to finally be able to remove her ridiculous work uniform and shower the muggy warmth of the Indiana summer off herself. The clean heat of the water and the scent of shampoo almost wiped the radio recording from her mind, but as she pulled a clean t-shirt over her head and began to towel her hair, her eyes alighted on the recorder on her bed through the open bathroom door, her bag having tipped over and spilled its contents on her bedspread.

Seized with a strange feeling of apprehension, she dropped the towel and walked over to her bed, carefully, like the recorder was somehow radioactive. Her rational mind told her not to be stupid, but her anxious-they’re-laughing-at-you-forgot-your-homework brain told her that something was seriously wrong with the voice she had heard in Gloria Duke’s white Trans Am.

_Gloria Duke._ Robin’s stomach flipped as the wave of realization rolled over her and she remembered that she had somehow agreed to _hang out_ with Gloria tomorrow. It was dorky, but she couldn’t help hearing the voice of Admiral Akbar in her head – _It’s a trap!_ Uh, yeah. No duh.

She was so screwed.

Still, she always had Steve as backup, odd as that sounded. And her curiosity, as usual, was getting the better of her common sense. Robin sat, cross-legged, on her comforter and picked up the recorder, turning it over in her hands.

“Let’s do this,” she said, to no-one in particular.

She reached over to get her headphones from her bedside drawer, plugged them in, pulled a notebook and pencil from her backpack, and pressed play on the recorder.

The next morning found Gloria awake at 9:00 AM sharp, far earlier than usual. She bounded out of bed, brimming with nervous energy, and showered in a record twenty minutes. She chose her outfit with care, high-wasted shorts and a white tank, and saw nothing unusual in the way she fretted over her makeup. Perhaps when she gave herself one last look-over in the mirror before she headed out, she did wonder that she felt more nervous than she had the night Gary Westerberg took her to his senior prom in his red Camaro the previous year; but if she did, she shook the thought off.

She prepped Marty’s breakfast with the same care she always did and ate with him and her mother, trying not to wolf her cereal down too fast, always conscious of the tick of the clock.

Robin woke on her bed, headphones still on, notebook and pencil still in hand. Groggily, she pushed up on her elbows to see the lurid green numbers on her digital clock reading 9:15 AM. Swearing softly to herself, she pushed her books off her body and jumped up, flinging her uniform on and stuffing things into her bag at random.

One frantic, sweaty bike ride later, she was heading up the back way to Scoops Ahoy. Bursting into the back room, she found Steve, arms crossed and glaring.

“Where have you been? Queen Bitch of Castle Hell has been waiting out there for you for ten minutes already. Why does she want to see you so bad, anyway?”

“Uh, no reason,” Robin blurted, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead.

Past the counter, Robin could see Gloria standing there, examining her nails. Her hair was pulled up into a high, bouncy ponytail, showing off her hoop earrings and stunning bone structure. Her tanned skin glowed against her white tank top. Robin checked her own reflection in the glass cover of the counter. Her hair was flattened into a damp, helmet-head mess and her face dripped with sweat.

_Great._

“God, did you hitch a ride on a garbage truck to get here?” Gloria drawled as Robin emerged from the back.

“Nice to see you too, Gloria,” Robin replied through gritted teeth.

“Whatever. Did you do the transliteration?”

“Yeah, I think I got most of it. Come on, I’ll show you.”

They chose a booth, trying to get as much seclusion as possible. Robin drew her notebook from her backpack, trying not to feel Gloria moving closer, or the warmth of her breath on Robin’s neck. _Concentrate._

“So, I listened closely to the sounds on the tape, and wrote down the letters I heard in the Latin alphabet.”

Gloria screwed up her nose. “Latin? We’re trying to translate it into English.”

“English uses the Latin alphabet,” Robin corrected as gently as possible.

Gloria blushed. “Oh. Yeah, I knew that.”

“So obviously I just got a string of letters. Then I listened to the tape again and tried to separate the letters into distinct words.”

Gloria examined the scribbled pages with wide eyes. “How long did this take you?”

“Well…all night.”

“Wow. This is like…” She struggled for the word. She wanted to tell Robin her mind was impressive, that her ability to create words out of strings of gibberish was nothing short of miraculous, but the words stuck in her throat. “Neat. But super nerdy. Like really, really lame.”

Robin could feel a headache building behind her eyes. Sighing, she knuckled her eye socket and resisted the urge to shake Gloria.

“So, the next step is to –”

“I INTERCEPTED A SECRET RUSSIAN TRANSMISSION!”

The ice cream parlor fell silent.

Robin and Gloria craned their necks to look into the other booth. Steve was busy shushing the boy sat beside him, both of them red-faced, smiling sheepishly at the curious customers.

Gloria and Robin glanced at each other; the same thought communicated in their eyes. As one, they stood up and slid surreptitiously into the other booth.

The guys both jumped. “What? Nothing!” Steve yelped as the girls sat down. Robin rolled her eyes.

“What the hell are you two talking about?”

“Nothing? What are you talking about?” The curly-haired kid said, still blushing.

“Kid, we all heard you screaming, you are _not_ discreet,” Gloria replied. “Don’t play dumb. What do you know?”

“What do _you_ know?” Steve countered.

Robin placed her notebook on the table.

“We heard something last night. A radio transmission in Russian. We’ve been trying to translate it.”

“ _Whoa.”_ Both boys stared at the work Robin had already done. “This is way further than I got,” the kid said reverently.

“Thanks,” Robin shrugged modestly.

“Robin…Gloria, this is Dustin,” Steve muttered. “Dustin, Robin works with me here, and Gloria…why _are_ you here?”

“Creepy Russian guy came out of _my_ car radio, numbnuts. I have a perfect right to be here.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Cut it out, both of you. Does anyone else know about this?” Robin asked.

“Nope,” Dustin mumbled. “My _dumb_ friends might have, if they weren’t all so busy _making out…_ ”

Wisely, Robin chose not to pursue that statement any further. “Okay, good. Until we know exactly what’s going on here, I suggest we keep it that way.”

The others all nodded. A hush had fallen over them which seemed to cut them off from the babble of noise all around them. For the two boys, it was the knowledge that the strangeness they had both been dealing with for the last two years was pulling them back in once again. For the girls, it was the sense rearing its head once again that their lives were about to be turned upside down.

Gloria sat in the backroom and watched Robin carefully print out the alphabet onto the white board, and underneath it the symbols of the Cyrillic alphabet. She felt caught, between knowing that the Gloria Duke she presented to the world should have long since left, and the fact of the strange gravity that seemed to be holding her there; part curiosity, part desire. And if she was seen here, sitting in this break room with Robin Buckley, she knew the world wouldn’t end; but the stakes were real to her, even if the world she was trying to preserve wasn’t. _But fuck it. It’s summer._

“What are you thinking?”

“Huh?” Gloria blinked and refocused. Robin had taken the chair opposite her and was peering at her from beneath her sailor’s hat.

“I said, what are you thinking? You looked really serious for a minute.”

“Uh, just, school stuff.”

A wry smile twitched at Robin’s lips. “It’s summer.”

“Yeah, I know. Just thinking ahead.”

“You know…if you ever needed help with school stuff, I’m a pretty good tutor.”

Gloria sat up, crossing her arms. “I’m not _dumb._ I don’t need any help.”

“I wasn’t saying you were _dumb_ ; I was just offering to – forget it.” Robin shook her head and made to push back from the table. A flash of something akin to panic went through Gloria, and she put her hand on Robin’s freckled arm.

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a bitch.”

“…Could have fooled me.” Robin’s voice had gone softly hoarse, and she was smiling a little. Gloria registered the warmth of her skin under her palm and whipped her hand back like she’d been stung.

“Sorry,” she said bluntly, unsure what she was apologizing for, only sure there _was_ something she was sorry for. Maybe several somethings.

At the counter, the bell chimed. Robin leaned back. “That’s my cue.”

Gloria tried to say something, like _come back soon,_ or _I’ll be waiting,_ but instead she just shrugged.


End file.
